We have previously shown that hMPV G protein (B2 lineage) interacts with cellular glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). In this study we examined subtypes A1, A2 and B1 for this interaction. GAG-dependent infectivity of available hMPV strains was demonstrated using GAG-deficient cells and heparin competition. We expressed the G protein ectodomains from all strains and analysed these by heparin affinity ch...

BACKGROUND Children with cyanotic congenital heart disease and pulmonary outflow tract obstruction have shortened platelet survival times and are susceptible to thrombosis and organ infarction. Thromboxane A2 and prostacyclin have opposing actions on platelet aggregability and an imbalance in their biosynthesis might contribute to the pathophysiology of these complications. METHODS Biosynthes...

Photoelectron spectra of HCO2 2 and DCO2 2 at 299 nm, 266 nm, and 213 nm are reported. Photodetachment accesses the A1 , B2 , and A2 states of the formlyoxyl radical, HCO2. The A1 state is assigned as the HCO2 ground state, although it is nearly degenerate with the B2 state ~T050.027 eV!, and the A2 state lies at T050.536 eV. The electron affinity of HCO2 is 3.49860.015 eV. The spectra show par...

Tandem mass spectrometry performed on a pool of 18 oligopeptides shows that the product ion spectra of argentinated peptides, the [bn + OH + Ag]+ ions and the [yn - H + Ag]+ ions bearing identical sequences are virtually identical. These observations suggest strongly that these ions have identical structures in the gas phase. The structures of argentinated glycine, glycylglycine, and glycylglyc...

Intestinal cells of C. elegans show an unexpectedly high complexity of cytoplasmic intermediate filament (IF) proteins. Of the 11 known IF genes six are coexpressed in the intestine, i.e. genes B2, C1, C2, D1, D2, and E1. Specific antibodies and GFP-promoter constructs show that genes B2, D1, D2, and E1 are exclusively expressed in intestinal cells. Using RNA interference (RNAi) by microinjecti...

Production of platelet thromboxane B2, a stable metabolite of thromboxane A2, was measured in seven newborn infants with pulmonary hypertension during the first day of life. Platelet thromboxane B2 production was significantly lower than in 12 healthy controls but did not correlate with simultaneous blood gas values.

The connection between a Taylor series and a continued-fraction involves a nonlinear relation between the Taylor coefficients {an} and the continued-fraction coefficients {bn}. In many instances it turns out that this nonlinear relation transforms a complicated sequence {an} into a very simple one {bn}. We illustrate this simplification in the context of graph combinatorics. PACS numbers: 02.90...

Given a coloring of Z+, we call a monochromatic set A = {a1 < a2 < · · · < am} an m-set. The diameter of A is am a1. Given two m-sets A and B, we say that they are non-overlapping if max(A) < min(B) or max(B) < min(A). The original study of non-overlapping m-sets, done by Bialostocki, Erdős, and Lefmann, concerned non-decreasing diameters. We investigate an “intermingling” of certain subset dia...